The online journal of SUCCESS

two hits

Theo-Schell Lambert’s fun essay on peripatizing the SFPL. I enjoyed this passage on the way a Richard Brautigan omnibus had been catalogued:

I noticed that its spine read “F Brautiga.” The absence of the final letter had a strange, enchanting effect. Richard’s name seemed to live somewhere between Perugia and rutabaga. Part Italian, part root vegetable.

To me it forces a comparison between “Brautiga” and Richard Fariña, endowing Brautigan with a fresh, South American flair. (???) Also, maybe: “Brautigan Comfy in Nautica.” [that is a proposed headline in the paper of record in my heart.]

I also wonder, while I’m thinking about the “ghosts of letters”, what happened to the tilde in Bolaño in TSL’s piece? The difference between Bolaño and Bolano isn’t insignificant, and I’ve been surprised how often the sonorousness of the writer’s proper name gets turned to so much “Baloney” by Anglophone keyboards! (Baloñey!) This is esp. relevant in light of the fact that an “Arturo Belano” (no tilde) appears as Bolaño’s double in The Savage Detectives and Amulet (and elsewhere?).

Finally, I wonder if I’m supposed to pronounce Schell-Lambert’s name in the French style, with the final consonant acting as a solid, silent ghost, as in “Lamberrrre”? Or does it rhyme with Humbert?

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2 thoughts on “two hits”

Andrew, I’m glad you asked. Later that day, and sadly too late for publication, the lost tilde alit, butterfly-like, upon the final n in Sirin, producing the frustrating-to-pronounce but elegant Siriñ. It reminded me of a story Dmitri Nabokov once told me over imitation caviar. The Original of Laura, he told me and only me, because we are close, was originally to be his father’s first Spanglish work. Its working title was, naturally, The Origiñal of Laura.

For the record, I (mis)pronounce it Lam-burt, but that’s not your fault.